Labors of Love: My Favorite Blogs of 2017

Between No Coast Bias, Hudl and the blog you’re reading right now, I have plenty of outlets to unleash my creativity. I get to do my best Shea Serrano impression on NCB. I get to push the limits of what makes good content marketing and PR at Hudl. I get to wax poetic on personal development and my personal life on this site. The possibilities are truly endless for my creative output.

As any content creator will tell you though, most often the projects you take the most pride in aren’t necessarily your best creations, but the ones you are most passionate about. With that in mind, here are my favorite creations from the past year.

Most of my days at Hudl involve me strategizing marketing campaigns and maintaining the well-oiled content machine that is our editorial team. So when the opportunity arose to conduct onsite interviews with an NBA staff, a staff that just so happens to be a part of MY FAVORITE NBA FRANCHISE, I jumped at the chance. The project also allowed me to flex my creative muscles beyond writing, as I provided creative direction to the onsite photographer and produced a longform article that was outside our standard blog templates.

When you can connect with heavy-hitters in your industry and pick up a few pointers along the way, you do it. I did just that with this social media roundtable, and it was as enjoyable experience from start to finish. Oh, did I mention that I got to talk shop with Da Content Gawd Shea Serrano?

I like video games, I’m obsessed with the NBA, and I’m basically stuck in a 90s time warp, so including a project that accounts for all those things was a no-brainer for this list. Research isn’t always the most enjoyable part of putting content together, but this project required me reading up on and playing one of my favorite video games of all-time. Yeah, this was fun.

This blog was a culmination of multiple interviews, social media coverage and days of networking. I still talk to most of the contacts I made during this conference, so my personal takeaways from the event go far beyond what was included in this write-up.

This wasn’t just a collection of words I put together. This was my declaration of independence from something that sucked up so much of my time during most of my adult life. So much weight was lifted off my shoulders after I hit publish and that’s a feeling you don’t always get when you write.

I have a love/hate relationship with ghostwriting, but it made total sense to lurk in the shadows on this blog. The content itself isn’t the most compelling stuff I put together this year, but getting the copy to a place all stakeholders were satisfied with is something I’m proud of. The blog was to represent our dedication to “getting things right” for our customers while also setting the table for the future, and it was a challenge I’m glad I took head on.

This piece is so me, it hurts. I put this list together during one of my all-nighters, proving I’m only at the height of my creative powers when I have a few vodka drinks in me. Spoken like a true writer, right?

My crew at NCB is awesome, and this exit survey was a great way to showcase their talent and wit. Not going to lie – sometimes putting these roundtables together can be a tedious process. That wasn’t the case here as everyone involved was super into the subject matter and played off of each other’s responses.

2017 was a great year for me in terms of creative growth, but I have some pretty ambitious projects in mind for 2018. Keep tabs on what I have cooking by following me on Twitter.